


Love Is a Bad Word

by hosie (lovewinx)



Category: Legacies (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-19 12:36:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22710928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovewinx/pseuds/hosie
Summary: The day before Valentine's Day, Lizzie talks to Hope about why she's been so distant with Josie lately. There's also some Hosie on V-Day.
Relationships: Hope Mikaelson & Josie Saltzman, Hope Mikaelson/Josie Saltzman
Comments: 2
Kudos: 181





	Love Is a Bad Word

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Valentine's Day :) I'm not sure how I feel about this, mainly because I'm sleep-deprived and have no idea what I just wrote, but here you go lol. This is also somewhat a songfic. I was either going to use Honeymoon Fades by Sabrina Carpenter or L*** Is a Bad Word by Kiiara, and by Hope and Lizzie's talk (and the title) you can probably figure out which one I went with, lmao

Josie’s POV

“I’m sure she’s just busy,” Lizzie reassures me as I stare down at my phone - my phone that has about six texts from me to Hope that have been read but left unanswered.

“Yeah,” I sigh, locking the screen and tossing the device onto my bed.

My sister frowns over at me, her eyebrows knit together. I feel her gaze on me for a few seconds before I snap, “What?”

She sighs. “Why do you pick these people? First Penelope, now Hope… Valentine’s Day is tomorrow, Jo. Spend it with someone who treats you the right way.”

I don’t respond, I just glance at my dark phone once more. I don’t want to spend it with anyone other than Hope, but she’s been so distant lately. I can feel her pulling away, and I don’t know what to do to get her back.

Lizzie’s POV

After a few more moments of watching my sister mope, I stand and head towards the door. “Where are you going?” she asks.

“I’ll be back,” I say, not bothering to actually answer her question. If I did, she’d prevent me from leaving.

As soon as the door shuts behind me, my pace quickens, and within minutes I’m at the tribrid’s door. I knock sharply, my features already settling into a glare. There is a shuffling from inside, but then the door swings open and I am met with a confused-looking Hope Mikaelson. “Lizzie,” she greets, her voice a mixture of shock and fear.

My glare deepens as I push past her and into her room. There is paint on her hands and a canvas set up on her easel, so I assume she was painting, but I don’t care enough to see what it is. I just turn around and face the redhead who has just shut the door and is now standing in front of me, shifting her weight from one foot to the other anxiously. “Did I do something?” she asks, her voice cautious so she won’t set me off anymore than I already am.

“No,” I bark. At the rise of her eyebrow, I elaborate, “It’s what you didn’t do. You’ve been ignoring all of Josie’s texts, you haven’t hung out with her in a few days, you don’t even sit with us at meals anymore!”

“To be fair, I don’t sit with anyone at meals,” she argues, but it doesn’t help her case.

I sigh frustratedly, then soften my voice a bit when I talk about the brunette. “She’s been panicking. I know you don’t care about many people and you think you’re so independent that you can’t let anyone in, but she cares about you - I don’t know why - and it’s killing her that you’re ignoring her like this. She thinks she did something wrong and caused you to pull away.”

Throughout my rant, Hope’s features relax into a guilty expression and she averts eye contact, then she runs a hand through her hair with a small sigh when I finish. I refrain from telling her that there’s now black paint mixed in with the auburn locks. Instead, I wait for her to say something, anything.

After a few moments of silence, she finally opens her mouth. “She didn’t do anything,” she sighs, her blue eyes meeting mine.

“Well, yeah, I know that,” I retort. “But she doesn’t.”

“I’m sorry,” she says in the same defeated voice.

“I’m not the one you should be apologizing to.”

Hope sighs again, then passes me to go sit on her bed, staring down at her hands. I watch her go, then follow her a second later. I sit next to her, but my eyes don’t go to her, they go to the familiar face staring back at me from her easel: it’s Josie. She was painting Josie.

“It’s just…” Hope’s voice breaks me out of my thoughts. My expression softens as I turn to face her. “Every time I get close to somebody, they end up getting hurt. My mother died because of me, my father for me… I don’t want anyone else I love ending up dead. It’s just better for me to keep my distance.”

I nod slowly, taking in her words. I understand where she’s coming from, but… “Shouldn’t that be Josie’s choice? Whether or not she wants to hurt herself to save you? Because I know my sister, and I can tell you that she would sacrifice herself for anyone, whether she’s in love with them or not.”

Hope chuckles at that. “That’s true…” she trails off.

“Why do you keep running away from her, Hope?” I ask, my voice gentle in the hopes of coaxing her to open up.

“I just told you,” she huffs out exasperatedly. “I don’t want her to get hurt.”

“But there has to be another reason,” I counter. “I’m not the biggest fan of your relationship with my sister,” Hope snorts at that understatement, “but I do see the potential of everything you two could be. But everytime you hold your tongue, it puts her in a state of emergency and she falls apart wondering what she did wrong. You’re sabotaging things, Hope.”

The tribrid sits back a little at my bluntness, but she doesn’t object, so I ask another question. “What’s been on your mind?”

It’s something I’ve been curious about for a while now. She and Josie confessed their feelings for each other a few weeks ago, and things were great in the beginning, but then Hope started distancing herself, especially over this past week. I can’t help but wonder why.

Hope sighs, running a hand through her paint-streaked hair once more. I still keep quiet about that, not wanting to distract the older girl from what she is hopefully about to tell me. Then, finally, she says, so quietly that I can barely hear it, “I’m terrified of what I feel inside.”

I soften even further at her confession. “That’s why you’ve been acting like love is a bad word?” I ask.

She snorts at my choice of words, but nods nonetheless before replying, “I’ve dated people before, but I’ve never felt this way about them. She makes me smile when no one else can. She’s the first person I think of when I wake up and the last person I think of before I fall asleep. She’s the only one who has never judged me because of my family, and she makes me want to be a better person and prove to everyone else that I’m not the monster my last name makes me out to be; I’m who she thinks I am. I want to be better for her, to prove to her that she was right and I am capable of being good.”

I frown at her words. “No one thinks you’re a monster, Hope. Maybe at first we were skeptical - mainly because of your father - but now we all love you. Especially Josie.”

Her eyes flicker up to mine, there are tears welling up in them. “I just don’t want to let her down.”

I don’t say anything to that; I don’t have anything to say to that. I just pull the older girl into a hug, letting her cry into my shoulder, biting back my sarcastic response of how she’s soaking my favorite shirt with her tears. Now is not the time.

After a few moments, Hope pulls back, wiping her eyes and blinking back more tears. “I’m sorry,” she laughs.

I just shake my head at her with a fond smile, glad that I finally got the tribrid to open up to someone other than my father and my sister. Maybe it’s a Saltzman thing. “It’s fine,” I assure her before segueing into more important matters. “But tell Josie how you feel. She doesn’t deserve to be left in the dark like this.”

Hope nods, then I stand to leave, my work here done. I say goodbye, making her promise to sit with us tomorrow at breakfast, then head back to my own room, ignoring my sister’s inquisitive glance when I walk in.

Josie’s POV

It’s not until I’m nestled into bed about to drift off to sleep that my phone lights up. I quickly pick it up, trying to push down the hope that it’s Hope (no pun intended), but when I see that it actually is, I can’t stop a beam from spreading across my features.

H: Goodnight, Jo. See you tomorrow ❤

I quickly say goodnight back, then fall asleep with a smile dancing across my lips.

I wake up on Valentine’s Day with two more texts from Hope, one saying good morning and the other saying happy Valentine’s Day with another heart. I smile at the good start to my day, but another part of me is afraid that she’ll just pull back again in a few days, or even just later today. I need to talk to her, sooner rather than later.

I quickly repeat the sentiment, then get ready and follow my sister down to breakfast, surprised to see the tribrid sitting at our table. “Hey,” she greets us when we walk up.

“Hi,” Lizzie shoots back without her usual snark. My eyebrows furrow, but I don’t question it as I also say a soft, “Hi, Hope,” and sit down before getting lost in conversation with my group of friends.

All day, Hope has been shooting me small smiles and nervous glances. I don’t know what this is about, but hopefully I’ll find out this evening. When she pulled me aside at the end of lunch and asked me to have dinner with her - just her - I was quick to accept the offer despite my worries about her running away again.

Right when the clock strikes 6pm, there is a soft knock on the door. I take a deep breath, examining my outfit once more in the mirror, before going to open it.

“Hey,” the tribrid greets, a fond smile on her face.

“Hey yourself,” I shoot back, pretending my anxiety is confidence.

“Are you ready?” she asks, but there is a hesitance to her voice, letting me know that she’s just as nervous as I am. Maybe we’re finally going to have that talk that I’ve wanted all day.

I say yes, then follow Hope out of my room, down the hall, and into the freezing cold chill of February in Virginia. “Why are we outside?” I ask, regretting not adding a jacket to my outfit.

Hope picks up on my shivering, quickly shrugging out of her own jacket and holding it out to me, but I hesitate before taking it. “Won’t you be cold?”

“I’ll be fine, Jo,” she laughs, so I gratefully take the denim jacket and pull it on, the lingering body heat warming me up immediately.

I pull it tighter around me as we begin walking. I have no idea where we’re going, but from the path we’re taking, my guess is the lake.

It turns out, I was right. After a few minutes of walking in silence, Hope reaches out to grab my wrist, effectively stopping me in my tracks. “Close your eyes,” she tells me, a nervous yet hopeful expression on her face.

I shoot her a curious glance, but I do as she says, then allow her to lead me closer to the familiar destination. When she tells me I can open them again, I take a deep breath, then open my eyes, the breath I just took catching in my throat when I do. There is a blanket laid out by the lake, my favorite foods set up on it, and string lights are draped over the branches of the closest trees, their soft glow reflecting in the water. “Wow,” I breathe out after a few moments of taking it all in.

“Is it too much?” Hope asks. I can tell by her voice she is starting to overthink things. “I didn’t want to not do enough since it’s Valentine’s Day and everything, but I also didn’t want to go overboar-”

“It’s perfect, Hope,” I cut her off, turning my attention to the tribrid at my side. “I love it. Thank you.”

She relaxes at my words, breathing a soft, “Cool,” as she looks over everything she set up, then she leads me over to the blanket and sits down.

Hope and I talk about whatever comes to mind throughout the entire picnic, our conversation often on random topics, but neither of us mind it not being too deep. Until Hope sits up a bit straighter, that is. That’s when I know we’re about to have the talk.

I straighten up too, following her lead as she clears her throat a bit and looks out over the water. “Jo…” she begins, trailing off as she contemplates what to say next. I wait patiently until she finds the right words.

“I know I’ve been a bit distant lately,” she finally says. “And I know you don’t deserve that, but I was just afraid. I was afraid of my feelings for you, and I was afraid of you getting hurt because of me, and… I was afraid of letting you down. You think so highly of me, and I’m afraid I’ll disappoint you when you realize I’m not everything you think I am.”

My heart tugs a bit at her words. “Hope, you don’t have to be afraid of… well… any of that,” I chuckle, my hand finding hers. Her eyes zone in on our laced fingers as I continue. “You could never let me down. I think highly of you because you’re amazing, and I know that you’re everything I think you are and more. I just wish you knew that, too. And as for getting hurt… We’re fighting off monsters left and right. There’s a much bigger chance that I’ll get hurt because of one of them than because I love you.”

Hope’s POV

I stare at our hands as Josie’s words sink in. Then I lift them to meet her deep brown ones that are currently filled with so much care and… “You’ve been acting like love is a bad word,” Lizzie’s voice runs through my mind.

I take a deep breath. Love. That’s what’s filling Josie’s eyes as she trains them on me, waiting for a reply, and that’s what she just admitted to feeling for me. So after another deep breath, I repeat her words. “I love you.”

She falters for a second, seemingly unable to believe what she just heard. My anxiety flares, my mind screaming at me to take the words back, but I don’t. I can’t, because they’re true.

After a moment or two, though, a smile breaks out across the brunette’s features. “You do?” she asks, moving a little closer.

“Yeah,” I laugh as I nod my head. “I do. I love you, Josie Saltzman.”

She’s inches away now. She lifts her hand to cup my cheek, the touch so gentle yet so demanding at the same time as she slowly pulls me forward. “I love you, too, Hope Mikaelson,” she whispers, then any response I could have had is cut off by her lips connecting with mine.

It’s a short, chaste kiss, but it’s sweet and soft and perfect nonetheless. And when Josie pulls back, a beam dancing across her lips, I know my own expression is mirroring hers.

“So what got you to finally open up?” Josie asks me as we make our way back inside a few hours later, our joined hands swinging lazily between us.

“Let’s just say someone came and talked some sense into me,” I say, rolling my eyes as I think of Lizzie while tugging her sister closer.

Josie’s laughter fills my ears, bringing a smile to my lips as I glance over at her carefree expression; I love seeing her happy. “I guess I have my sister to thank for the perfect Valentine’s Day then, huh?” she teases, a challenging glint in her eyes.

“I did all the work!” I protest, walking right into the younger girl’s trap.

“But if it weren’t for her, you wouldn’t have done it,” she points out, and at my flustered lack of response, she smirks victoriously.

“Shut up,” I huff with a roll of my eyes. Josie just sticks her tongue out at me before laughing once more, and my irritated expression dissolves into yet another smile as my favorite sound reaches my ears.


End file.
